Advice from other cities: Don't cut corners on shelter

Shelter employees in San Diego and San Antonio stress importance of quality

By JESSIE VAN BERKEL

Buy quality water heaters and bunk beds.

It might not be the flashiest advice Sarasota County has every gotten, but it was a key point on county and law enforcement officials' tour of homeless services.

Shelter employees in San Antonio and San Diego advised Sarasota to spend money on quality materials and appliances.

“Either make the thing work right or don't do it at all,” said Father Joe Carroll, founder of Father Joe's Villages, a massive shelter and service center in San Diego.

You can feel the roaches when you walk into some shelters, he said. At Father Joe's, Carroll said he wanted a place were people do not feel like dirt. A place where kids ask their parents, “Are we going to get to stay here?”

“I want a courtyard, I want a water fountain. I have to go over there everyday, I want it to look nice,” Carroll said. “If it's run-down, they aren't going to believe in themselves.”

Ralph Hinojosa, the head of facilities and maintenance at San Antonio's Haven for Hope shelter, also had a vision.

“I want it to look like the UTSA (University of Texas at San Antonio) campus and have people sitting around reading books,” Hinojosa said.

That image became the reality.

Inside Haven's fences, people recently lounged on benches reading paperbacks. Nearby, a group of men trimmed shrubbery.

Keeping Haven meticulously clean requires an annual budget of $250,000 that Hinojosa said is primarily spent on staff. He also pulls from a campus replacement fund and slush fund for repairs.

If the center took the cheap route on details like water heaters, cutoff valves or furniture, they ended up paying three times what they would have if they initially bought quality, estimated Shaun Lee, Haven's vice president of operations.